Despite it's beautiful design on paper, this soap never quite met my expectations on arrival. Perhaps it was the slice I was cut, but when my piece of North Pole Soap arrived with my Christmas 2012 order, it didn't look anything like the gorgeous candy-pink and white striped pole I was expecting. In fact, my first parcel contained only a pathetic looking piece of white soap and I had to visit my local shop to pick up a pink piece as well.
What makes North Pole stand out is that each colour has a slightly different fragrance - meaning this soap can be cut and used as two different soaps, or combined to get a beautiful and rather unique scent.
While the white has a gentle sugary peppermint aroma, the pink section offers fans a gorgeous mint chocolate scent. Individually they smell lovely and because the block can be cut how consumers want, if you favour one scent over the other, it's very easy to buy only that colour. However, together they give off a rich, sensual and refreshingly sweet smell that is perfect for the winter months. Both fragrances compliment each other so that the chocolate element isn't too 'food', while the mint section isn't overly minty. After testing out both of these soaps, it was obvious that I preferred the white soap. Designed to smell like mint rock, this soap contains a combination of peppermint, cedarwood and cypress oils - which not only make this soap moisturising and soft on the skin, but give off an uplifting mint aroma that has a subtle element of wood about it. The pink soap has a slightly different ingredients list. Although peppermint oil has been used as well, this product also features cocoa absolute which gives the soap it's gentle but rich chocolately scent. Together these two scents compliment each other and offer Lush fans a warm, comforting but equally invigorating soap like no other.
In the shower these soaps are very easy to lather up and they both produce an oily foam that cleans the skin and leaves it smelling gorgeous. The mint element is the most dominating note here and you'll find that it lingers on your skin for a while after showering. However, the mint isn't overly strong in the mix so you don't have to worry about being blasted away by an overpowering peppermint smell.While North Pole isn't drying on the skin, it isn't overly moisturising either so you may have to use a body lotion afterwards. Charity Lotion would compliment this scent well or you could use something like Wiccy Magic Muscles to further your minty experience.
Overall, this soap is a very festive release from Lush and I only hope that they choose to bring it back during the seasonal holidays. While it's not the most popular of soaps, it does make a change from the fruity/cinnamon-scented products we usually get offered and it does help to warm those coggles without being too overpowering.
Quantitative Ingredients: Water, Propylene Glycol, Rapeseed Oil, Coconut Oil, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, Sodium Stearate, Perfume, Peppermint Oil, Cocoa Absolute, Cedarwood Oil, Cypress Oil, Glycerine, Sodium Chloride, EDTA, tetrasodium Etidronate, Sodium Hydroxide, *Citronellol, *Limonene, *Linalool, Titanium Dioxide, Colour 17200.
Vegan?: Yes.
2016 Price: £4.25 for 100g.
